2010 was a funny year to say the least, a year marked by extreme personal, physical and spiritual growth. I think that 2010 began my march towards "manhood", whatever that even means. Towards the end of 2010, I finally began to realize that I no longer existed as a teenager (though I'm not 20 until August of 2011, and will never really relinquish healthy dashes of immaturity and spontaneity).
2010 began on a pretty mundane and foreshadowing note - a supposedly "crazy" New Years bash at my friend Emmy's house. Most of my friends had completed their first semester of college, and, being exposed to alcohol for the first time, decided it would obviously be a great plan to drink, and drink....and drink. The one thing I remember most vividly about this night (aside from the fact that I had a ridiculous argument with my girlfriend at the time because I wanted to spend the night with friends) was showing up around 7 or 8 and everyone already being absolutely plastered - and alcohol didn't even mar my memory. I remember beginning 2010 wanting to recreate 2009, a year which had me break out of my shell and make tons of new friends, enjoying the idealistic senior year and senior summer - hopping from grad party to grad party, hanging out with beautiful young women, and being invited to many a party.
My friend Kelly and I had promised to recreate the New Year we had at the start of 2009, when we stayed awake to enjoy a beautiful sunset on the beach with our friend Ian. 2010, it seemed, was doomed to be a failure from the start - we both fell asleep and made no real effort to even wake up, it just didn't seem worth it. From this, I think 2010 taught me that its foolish and naive to try and recreate and relive the past. Its better to just stick with the people you love and take life as it comes, enjoying experiences for what they are in the moment rather than what they were, or could have been.
Meanwhile, aside from the New Year, 2010 seemed great. My freshman year of college was going incredibly well: I was starting on the rugby team, I had made many good friends, I had ridiculously crazy times living the college life, and was doing well in school. Athletically, socially, and athletically, I was thriving - I knew I belonged at Vassar College, and I loved it. I traveled to Ireland with the mens' and womens' rugby teams over spring break, and got a wonderful new girlfriend. I was, most simply, satisfied. You could say that I was in love with Vassar College (I still am, don't get me wrong - just in a different way). I knew I was in love with Vassar College when, at the end of the year, I could not believe the year was ending - yet the year had taken so, so very long to pass by. Vassar College had rendered eternity a moment, and vice-versa.
Then, summer came. I expected greatness, again, a reliving of the epic senior summer of 2009. It was just...blah. I had pledged to my rugby team that I would work out ridiculously while working for my Mom at the family sandwich shop - and I did. But it left me empty, almost completely so. Each weekday, I got up at 7, showered, packed my gym bag with a change of clothes, and drove to work. At work, I made sure that I stayed hydrated, drinking about 2-3 gallons of water per day. I performed my working duties each day, mindlessly preparing food, making sandwiches, and washing dishes. I would then drive to the gym directly after, run 3 miles, and workout a predetermined muscle group. I would record my weight and reps for that day in a notebook, then drive home. At home, I would eat tons of proteiny-foods and drink my protein shake. By this time it would be about 5:30, my day completely gone in a tornado of work and exhaustion. I would then eat dinner with my family, and, maybe, if I wasn't too tired, drive to go hang out with friends. If not, I would stay home and play Rugby '06 on my old Xbox, wishing I was back at Vassar.
Every. Single. Day.
Needless to say, this absolutely destroyed me, drained me (and I would say I'm a pretty resilient person). Throw in the fact that two my greatest friends and absolutely amazing people were out of the country (Kelly and Woojin, I love you both so very much), and things not looking too good between me and my girlfriend at the time (we broke up), and you have a very discontent human being. I literally felt trapped in my own mind, a prisoner to the enslaving thought of "I MUST GET BACK TO VASSAR!" I thought that I had a life threatening heart condition, and would never be able to play rugby again. I thought about death and its inevitability so very much. What was worth doing, and why? Utter depression. I cried for help from my parents, trying to communicate to them how helpless I really felt. I would tell them how lonely I felt, how I would feel as if my mind was simply thrown into the abyss and that all I wanted was to be back at Vassar. Thank God for them. They reminded me to appreciate home, because I would likely miss it when I went back to Vassar.
And damn, they were right.
I arrived back at Vassar so, so incredibly happy. It was great to see the people I had missed so dearly over the summer. But soon, I began to become just as jaded as I had over the summer. I would either be sitting in my single room alone, wondering why I felt this way, or out partying and wondering why that was even so great (i had done it all freshman year, there was nothing new there, and nothing great, at the least). I believe I had lost my "childhood sense of wonder with the world", as Stanley Kubrick, the great director, would describe it. Kubrick, who presumably doesn't believe in God or a god, was quoted the following after being asked "If life is so purposeless, do you feel like its worth living?" in an interview with Playboy around 1970:
"Yes, for those of us who manage somehow to cope with our mortality. The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. Children, of course, begin life with an untarnished sense of wonder, a capacity to experience total joy at something as simple as the greenness of a leaf; but as they grow older, the awareness of death and decay begins to impinge on their consciousness and subtly erode their joie de vivre, their idealism - and their assumption of immortality. As a child matures, he sees death and pain everywhere about him, and he begins to lose faith in the ultimate goodness of man. But if he's reasonably strong - and lucky - he can emerge from this twilight of the soul into a rebirth of life's elan. Both because of and in spite of his awareness of the meaninglessness of life, he can forge a fresh sense of purpose and affirmation. He may not recapture the same pure sense of wonder he was born with, but he can shape something far more enduring and sustaining. The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death - however mutable man may be able to make them - our existence as a species can have a genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light."
Kubrick seemed to perfectly describe what I was going through: I had lost my light, my fervor, my wonder with the world. Nothing seemed to excite me anymore, or at least not much excited me - and death was constantly on my mind (dark, huh?). As the first semester of my sophomore year rolled on, I searched and searched for that light, a light that could keep me going, and get my mind off an inevitable entity. I soon found through the help of my family, my friends, and God, a conclusion quite opposite that of Kubrick's. My conclusion pointed at a world filled with a vast light, a world created by a loving God with a beauty unsurpassed anywhere in the universe. I remember visiting a Sufi Islam Dhikr in New York City and being absolutely touched by its beauty, the Arabic of the prayer resonating completely with my body and mind despite my absolute lack of connection with Islamic culture. A man present at the dhikr described the prayer service as "food for the soul." Though I had heard this expression many times before, that night was the first time I absolutely felt the power of that expression. Light filled my body like never before, and it was as if I finally just...understood.
I began to more readily see the beauty inherent in my family and friends, and just people in general. As many hateful, terrible people exist in the world, there exists a beautiful being who brings light into the world in every way. Individuals who love show me that there is God. Have you ever seen a man or a woman in love? As championed as logic and the scientific approach are in our society, love renders the human completely irrational, completely devoted to the person despite the brain's logic. The heart of the human being acts in a complete and selfless love that I believe impossible without a loving God. Since I have felt love, and have seen love in another fellow human being, I can die a happy man. I remember seeing a girl at my scoliosis hospital who was missing a leg exhibiting the most genuine and joyous happiness I have ever seen - how could I be unhappy? The very fact that I was allowed to BE is an absolute blessing in itself, a beauty that, though it will pass within the period of a relatively few years, I will have had the grace of experiencing.
I remember one night in particular I discussed death with one of the most genuine and great people I know, my friend Andrew. We wondered what it would feel like; would there be a heaven or a hell? Are those just silly distinctions? Wouldn't death just be the nothingness that we "felt" (or, weren't really conscious of) prior to our existence? I don't know about you, but I don't remember being unhappy prior to my existence (thats probably because I didn't have a brain to remember with, but still...wouldn't death be similar?). Because death would be this same calm peace, we decided that a person would almost be able to shape his or her own heaven or hell, his or her after death experience. If God is within all of us (both transcendent and immanent), as I believe, then we, having a small bit of God within our very beings, have the power to shape our afterlife. Someone completely negative who finds no light in the world, a person who relies on things rather than souls to make them happy would likely find death an empty nothingness, an abandoned, icy cold wasteland of hell. As German psychologist Erich Fromm put it, "If I am what I have, and if I lose what I have, then who am I?" Nothing, pure nothingness. On the other hand, a positive person who finds light in the world, who takes joy in life and delights in soulful connections, would likely find death a peaceful end, a fitting end to a long life filled with happiness and light.
Hell, maybe I've made all this up just to keep myself happy, just like Kubrick said. But my mind, my heart, and my soul tell me that there really is a God out there, a God who is both immanent and transcendent, a God who cares about us and not who we worship or how we worship, as long as love is present. The power of human connection and love attests to this, as a unique and powerful expression of total commitment and happiness. Shoutouts to my Mom, my Dad, my family, Woojin Lee, Rob Duffy, Ian Gonzales, Oliver Goudiaby, Kelly Ward, Erin Gardner, Andrew Guzick, Rahul Kanade, Matt Elisofon, Matt Elgin, and Adam Steel for especially providing light in my life, as well as to others not mentioned here - you know who you are, and I love you with all my heart.
2011 started off with one of the greatest nights of my life, a beautiful New Years with a bunch of close friends gathering, a group of friends embracing in complete and total love and joy. Though 2011 marks the start of a new year, a year closer to my end, I can tell that 2011 is going to be an incredibly beautiful year, and look back at 2010 with as much awe as I do disappointment (there were so, so many good things amongst the ugly).
I am so incredibly fortunate, blessed with a wonderful life, family, friends, home, education, body and mind. Though I have discovered that I am mortal, I am so very content.
God bless.
